Theory

All across Europe workers and young people face the austerity axe. And
all across Europe there is a fight to defend jobs and services against
governments who are determined to do the bidding of big business and the
banks. Hannah Sell, Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales) deputy
general secretary, looks at the role of the general strike in these
battles.

"We are angry." This was how nine out of ten Greeks described their
mood. In the same poll 93% of Greeks called for corrupt politicians to
be jailed. The rage of the Greeks is not surprising - the whole working
class is having its living standards trampled into the dirt. And Greece
is not alone, from Britain to Spain to Ireland, the governments of
Europe are taking the Con-Dem road - and trying to smash public services
and workers’ living standards.

They have been met with ferocious resistance. Greece was shut down six
times in the first seven months of 2010 - as a result of powerful
24-hour general strikes. As yet these general strikes have not defeated
the government’s austerity packages, but the government could be forced
to retreat if the determination of the Greek working class is channelled
into more decisive action in the coming months.

Spain, 29 September

Workers in other countries are taking the ’Greek road’. In Spain a
24-hour public sector strike in June has been followed by a magnificent
24-hour general strike of the whole workforce on 29 September, with an
incredible ten million workers taking part in the demonstrations.

In Italy one million took to the streets on 25 June in the strongest
general strike for many years. In France two and a half million took to
the streets as part of a public sector strike against pension cuts on 7
June.

Beyond Europe the general strike is also increasingly back on the agenda
- with the recent tremendous 13-day long public sector strike in South
Africa and in India around 100 million people took part in the biggest
general strike for many years.

General strike in Britain?

In Britain the question of general strike action is also beginning to be
posed. The massive cuts that the government is going to announce on 20
October will dramatically lower the living standards of every working
class person, and many middle class people as well. Unless you are part
of the tiny minority who can afford to pay for you and your family’s
healthcare, education and social services privately, these cuts will
adversely affect you.

This year’s Trades Union Congress agreed to coordinate action against
cuts. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, pledged that they
would "support and coordinate campaigning and joint union industrial
action, nationally and locally, in opposition to attacks on jobs,
pensions, pay or public services". Barber was anxious to make clear this
did not mean a general strike. However, despite his best efforts, for
workers watching the TUC at home, the idea of a general strike was
unconsciously raised by the TUC’s pledges.

The majority of trade union leaders refuse to even talk about a general
strike because of the fear of what it would mean in Britain. However,
they also take refuge in the fact that in Britain, unlike other
countries in Europe, the anti-trade union laws mean that generalised
strike action is virtually illegal. There are huge obstacles to even
achieving a public sector general strike within the straitjacket of the
anti-trade union laws. These laws, the most repressive in the advanced
capitalist countries, were introduced by previous Tory governments and
left intact by New Labour. We do not lightly support breaking the
anti-union laws and thereby risking trade union funds, but this struggle
- to defend the public sector from decimation - is too important to
allow individual trade unions to fight alone. Coordinated action is
vital, even if it means confronting the anti-union laws.

United strike action is inherent in the situation. As Bob Crow, general
secretary of the RMT transport workers’ union, put it: "If, for example,
RMT members are balloting for strike action and so are the firefighters
it is logical to coordinate the ballots."

Given that every public sector worker’s pay and conditions will be
directly affected by the cuts it could be possible to legally organise a
public sector general strike in this way, if the national trade union
leaders were prepared to do so. Particularly on the issue of pensions’
coordinated action across the public sector in response to the Hutton
Report is likely to be posed.

Action of this nature was threatened in 2005, forcing the New Labour
government to retreat from its attack on public sector pensions. In
2008, some public sector unions - the civil servants’ PCS, the teachers’
NUT and the lecturers’ UCU - organised coordinated strike action on pay.

Of course, as we have seen with the British Airways cabin crew strike
and others, even when unions follow every dot and comma of the byzantine
anti-trade union laws, the courts can still ban strikes. When this
happens the trade union movement must be prepared to come to the aid of
the union/s under threat by taking strike action in their defence.

We cannot allow these undemocratic laws to prevent workers taking
effective action. In reality, if all public sector unions defied the
anti-trade union laws and took simultaneous strike action, the
government would be powerless to stop them and, in the process, the
anti-trade union laws would be broken asunder.

Even without the anti-trade union laws, however, the leadership of the
TUC would prefer no-one to as much as whisper the words ’general
strike’. General strikes obviously have varying characteristics but all
general strikes - where the working class shows its strength by bringing
society to a halt - are a very serious weapon in the armoury of the
working class. General strikes, particularly when they are indefinite,
pose the question of who runs society: the working class, which can
bring the country to a standstill, or those currently in power, the
capitalist class?

In Britain, general strikes have been far rarer than most countries of
Europe, and there has been no experience of a complete one-day general
strike such as has taken place in Greece and Spain this year. It has
come close on many occasions, for example in 1972 following the jailing
of the Pentonville Dockers, when a general strike began to develop from
below and the TUC was forced to call one; but only after they were
certain they would not have to act on the threat, because the Dockers
were already being freed from prison!

In the coming months the demand for a one-day general strike, probably
initially a one-day public sector strike, is going to be on the lips of
workers throughout Britain. Despite their reluctance, the enormous
pressure that will develop from below can force even the most right-wing
trade union leaders to act. And given the specific history of Britain,
even a one-day public sector strike would strike terror into the
government and the capitalist class and would enormously raise the
confidence and combativity of the working class for the struggles to
come.

Revolutionary general strikes

Such a ’warning strike’ would inevitably be centred on stopping the
government’s onslaught. However, there have been many general strikes in
history which have gone beyond defensive demands and starkly raised the
possibility of the working class taking power into its own hands.
Although not posed immediately, at least in Britain, we will see similar
revolutionary general strikes in the future.

1968 was a year of mass movements across the globe. In May of that year
ten million workers in France occupied the factories in a month-long
general strike in what was, at least until now, the greatest general
strike in history. As they occupied the factories the French working
class hoisted the red flag and discussed how they could run society. The
French president, Charles de Gaulle, fled the country. The London
Evening Standard declared: "The situation today can be summed up in a
few words: it is a revolutionary situation of an almost text-book kind."

In essence, the only reason that the working class of France did not
take power in the general strike of May 1968 was because the leadership
of the working class, above all the Stalinist Communist Party, betrayed
them and was as frightened by the movement as the capitalists. In
Britain, as well, the leadership of the trade union movement has a
history of quailing in the face of a determined mass movement of the
working class, which has then allowed the capitalist class to defeat the
movement.

In his book, 1926 General Strike - Workers Taste Power, Peter Taaffe,
Socialist Party general secretary, explains what happened during the
last British general strike. In 1919, in the run up to the heroic
nine-day general strike of 1926, the then British prime minister
declared to the trade union leaders: "If you carry out your threat and
strike you will defeat us, but if you do so have you weighed up the
consequences? A strike will be in defiance of the government of this
country, and by its very success, will precipitate a constitutional
crisis of the first importance. For if a force arises in the state,
which is stronger than the state itself, they must be ready to take on
the functions of the state or withdraw and accept the authority of the
state. Gentlemen, have you considered, and if you have, are you ready?"
The reaction of the right-wing miners’ leader Robert Smillie was: "From
that moment on we were beaten and we knew we were."

When the general strike took place seven years later, the trade union
leaders betrayed the strike because they were not prepared to mobilise
the working class to take power. In the aftermath of the strike the
capitalist class, terrified by the power the working class had
demonstrated, showed all its cold cruelty as it took its revenge. The
miners were left to starve for a year; railway workers and many others
saw their pay cut; tens of thousands were blacklisted. Britain in 1926
was not unique - when general strikes have been defeated, from Sweden in
1909 to Sri Lanka in 1980, the capitalist class has sought ruthless
retribution.

For these reasons socialists do not lightly raise the demand for a
general strike. As Leon Trotsky, the famous Russian revolutionary, put
it: "improvisation is impermissible precisely on the question of a
general strike", adding that: "a general strike, particularly in the old
capitalist countries, requires a painstaking Marxist accounting of all
the concrete circumstances."

Today most of the trade union leaders are even less prepared to lead a
serious struggle than they were in 1926. In the last 20 years there has
been an increased tendency in the leadership of the trade union movement
towards accepting the ’logic of the market’, that is the logic of
cutting workers’ pay and conditions! Many trade union leaders have
become used to administering defeat rather than leading a struggle to
defend their members’ interests.

In addition, the outlook and understanding of the working class has also
been shaped by the experience of the last 20 years. Current
consciousness, and the absence of mass workers’ parties which workers
see as fighting for their interests, mean that today, while a general
strike still objectively poses the question of power, this is not yet
clearly understood by the mass of the working class.

In the general strikes in Greece the working class has shown enormous
determination to stop the avalanche of cuts raining down on them.
Nonetheless, the possibility of taking power themselves, and beginning
to build a new socialist society, was not posed in the minds of the
majority of even the most combative sections of the working class, at
least at the beginning of the struggle.

This is starting to change on the basis of workers’ own experience.
Already, according to opinion polls, 48% of the Greek population
supports nationalisation of the banks and a third supports a call to
’cancel the debt’; a demand that Xekinima,
the Socialist Party’s sister party in Greece, was the first to put
forward. Intrinsically linked to the development of socialist
consciousness will be the building of mass parties with a socialist
programme. Without its own political organisation the working class is
fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

Workers’ committees

Another crucial aspect of the general strike is the development of
workers’ committees. In France 1968 action committees sprang up around
the country in workplaces, universities and neighbourhoods. The
committees began to link up, initially to organise the strike, but
inevitably also to begin to organise society. The same process began to
develop in parts of Britain in 1926 - with motor vehicles requiring
signs ’by the authority of the TUC’ before they were allowed on the
roads. Such organisations of struggle reached their highest level in
history in Russia 1917 when the Soviets (workers’ councils) went from
being the means of organising the revolution to the basis for building a
new socialist society.

While in Greece there is enormous distrust of the official trade union
leaders (the general secretary of the TUC no longer dares to speak at
the general strike rallies after being physically hauled off the stage
on one occasion and, on another, pelted with yoghurt!) there is not yet
the widespread development of workers’ committees to direct the
struggle. Socialists have an important role to play in raising the need
for such committees.

Each country is different, but for these reasons it is - at this stage
of the struggle across Europe - generally correct to call for warning
general strikes - of 24 or 48 or even 72 hours - sometimes combined with
other sectional strikes, depending on the stage of the struggle, rather
than all-out general strikes. Such warning strikes can play a vital role
in increasing the confidence and cohesion of the working class and
preparing the ground for decisive action to defeat the capitalists in
the future.

However, general strikes do not, in themselves, guarantee victory. To be
fully effective they need to be built for, and part of a programme of
action, not just an outlet for the working class to ’let off steam’.

Britain’s struggle begins

Here in Britain the struggle is at a particularly early stage. To some
extent we are still in the ’phoney war’ where the cuts have not yet all
been announced, and even those that have been announced remain abstract
in the minds of many workers. However, in the coming months, as millions
face very concrete threats to their jobs, pensions, wages and public
services, Greece will start to come to Britain.

We have demanded that the first step in Britain should be a massive
trade union-led national demonstration, mobilising hundreds of thousands
or more against the cuts. This would immediately raise the confidence of
everyone who participated, preparing the ground for a 24 hour public
sector general strike. As a result of the pressure from left unions the
TUC has now said it will call a national demonstration. This is to be
welcomed but the proposal for a demonstration in March 2011, six months
after the comprehensive spending review, is far too late.

The London regions of the RMT, PCS and the firefighters’ FBU unions and
of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN - see www.shopstewards.net)
have taken the initiative to call a regional demonstration in London on
Saturday 23 October, immediately after the comprehensive spending
review. Up and down the country other local demonstrations will also
take place on that day. These should be a springboard for a national
demonstration before Christmas.

There are many other forms of struggle that will need to be employed in
the war against the ’austerians’ who want to wipe out rights and better
conditions that have been won by the working class. 2010 will go down as
the year that general strikes came back on the agenda. Used correctly,
the general strike is a potentially enormously powerful weapon. As a
result of the working class’s experience of struggle, we will
increasingly see, not only the ’defensive’ general strikes of today as
the working class tries to hold back the offensive against them, but
also general strikes where the working class sees the potential to take
the power and begin to build a new democratic socialist society.